You raised me with nothing but love and care. You were so small, but I haven’t met anybody who can match your strength. A day never went by where I didn’t get at least one hug from you. But I stole something from you. With every hug, I was betraying your trust and wasting your warmth. Everything you gave to me wasn’t enough to fill in the holes I’d already begun to cut from my soul. I can’t remember a single hug, a single moment with you, where my body was whole. I know you hugged me before I began making these scars, but I can’t remember it. There are pictures and stories, eye witnesses and undeniable video evidence, but still… I can’t remember what it felt like… and before I knew it, all I could give you was this half human shell. Everything was gone. I was only 6, but it was all gone. I knew it wasn’t right, cutting myself like that, but I couldn’t resist. I was only 6, and it wasn’t your fault at all, but part of me still wanted to blame anybody other than the monster I share a body with. I stole away the innocence you gave me. I’ve never been able to give you the type of hug you gave me every day. You deserved so much better. Mom, you deserved a child who could appreciate the life you gave them. You didn’t deserve to have me as your child. I’m so, so sorry Mom….

~I’m sorry Dad~

70 hour work weeks are no joke, yet they never seemed to wear you down. I assumed that was just because all adults lived this way. I took you for granted. You drove the night shift at work so you could be home in time to drive me to school. You’d skip sleep to take me to doctor appointments. You would arrive to my softball games in your full work uniform. Most of my games took place in the summer, so it was always hot, yet you never complained. You could only ever catch a few innings before you had to leave, so I would have understood if you just skipped them entirely. But you didn’t. You came and watched and cheered me on. I wasn’t any good at softball, but you never looked away. Now, as I look back, I start to wonder what else you gave up for me, when I couldn’t give you anything in return? How much sleep did you lose because of me? You couldn’t have gotten more than a few hours each day. And your paying for that now. I can see it in how you move, how much even the most basic task hurts you, but you still put everybody else before yourself. You gave up your health to watch this ungrateful brat suck at softball, and you did it all with a smile. You deserved better. Dad, you deserved a child who could appreciate the sacrifices you made for them. You didn’t deserve to have me as your child. I’m so, so sorry Dad….

I understand that what I’m doing isn’t exactly “healthy,” okay? I can comprehend that the momentary sense of euphoria is the result of a release of endorphins in response to the pain. I could get the same effect from something like running, or fucking. Yet here I am, all alone, exhausted from doing fuck all over the past million minutes. Actually, I’m probably being a bit harsh on myself, because I have done a few things over the past week. I managed to drag my ass into work, Monday through Friday, 8AM to 5PM. I didn’t get all of my work finished that I should have, but I can take my work laptop home, so I can play catch up at some point in between my wild and wacky weekend antics (which is, of course, just me, sitting alone in my pitch black bedroom, with nothing but a 2 liter of Mountain Dew as sustenance and my non-work laptop as a means of feeling connected to the world, even if only through binging early 2000’s Anime and re-watching old YouTube videos). I also did some shopping this week, so my pantry is full. It is true that 99% of that pantry space is occupied by Cup Noodle, but I did get a nice variety of flavors, because I care about having a diverse and well-rounded diet. So yeah, I’m chugging along at a nice, even clip. I deserve a reward for having such a productive week, right?

And that’s where all these scars and bruises come into the picture.

Everything else gives me nothing, no sense of accomplishment or purpose. I’m just an emotionally vacant hole, and I’m backhauling in all the bullshit I can find in a piss poor attempt to feel full. Of course, that’s not how anything works, so nothing gets better, and I’m still a husk of a human. Is it so strange that I would turn to self harm in this situation? To me it feels like the logical conclusion. I need anything to wake me up, even if only for a few moments. The edge of a knife against my wrist gives me the rush I need. It’s a sharp pain that quickly fades, but the ridges that decorate my skin will tingle for about an hour. I can extend that feeling beyond that initial hour with a little bit of pressure. A few quick punches right on top of the cuts really helps to wake up those nerve cells. If I can keep it going for a solid 5 minutes, all of the skin around the cut will become a marbled mess of black and blue, and the cut itself will widen up a few centimeters, so the blood will keep flowing and flowing and flowing. By the time the bleeding has stopped, and I’ve cleaned myself up in the shower, the sight of my fucked up body in the mirror is more than enough to draw from me some genuine, untethered laughter. I mean who wouldn’t just lose their shit if they looked like this?! Both arms, from the shoulders to my fingertips, are patchworks of bruises and bright red lines. One glance and it’s so fucking obvious how much I deserve to look like this, or even worse. And I latch onto that thought, because I could look worse, right? My hands still work, which seems sort of fucked up, considering what they just did to my arms. So I bury those smartass hands in my bedroom walls. But my legs are also working just fine, having walked me from my computer chair, into my kitchen, and back again. They are accomplices to this travesty! This crime cannot go unpunished! So I light up a few cigarettes, using my legs as ashtrays, putting out the final dot of heat on my ankles and thighs. And yet I still feel like I’m forgetting something; and that’s when it hits me! I still have lungs that keep pumping me full of life-giving oxygen, and a stomach that continues to try and break my belt with its constant need to expand! But worst of all, I still have this heart, beating away, pushing blood through my veins even as I try to force that blood down the drain! I still have this heart!!!…. This heart…. That feels like lead…. This heart that can’t seem to carry me anywhere, and so I find myself leaning on the shoulders and ideas of others to carry my things, things I should be able to carry with my own strength…. This heart that has nothing left beyond the basic, barbaric function of keeping me alive, even if the rest of me is begging for it to fucking stop….

Well, I can take some pills to turn my stomach into knots that will surely come back up my throat and all over my toilet. And those same pills will grip my muscles, drying out my mouth and making it harder to take any sort of breath, so my lungs will be screaming at me shortly. But my heart? What can I do about my heart? It’s the one responsible for this mess, more so than anything else. But what can I do? It’s getting late, and I can feel the rest of my body shutting down. At this point I can only hope this isn’t going to be me simply falling asleep. I have to hold out hope that I finally did enough, that my heart got the message loud and clear. I have to believe…I’ve finally paid enough…to earn a little bit of peace…

But this was just another normal week for me. I’ve done this for 6 years now. And yeah, I understand that what I’m doing isn’t exactly “healthy,” okay? I can comprehend that the momentary sense of euphoria is the result of a release of endorphins in response to the pain.

But I can’t stop.

I could never stop.

Until my heart can catch up to the rest of me, I’ll ever be able to stop.

I regret a lot of things. I regret not getting into bitcoin when it was just starting up. I regret going to college for a degree in Accounting when I hate all things business. I regret not upgrading my popcorn to a large bucket at the movies last week, and using my savings to purchase an indoor training bike I have yet to assemble, and for that time I yelled at Chef Robert Irvine to use the secret ingredient peanuts to make a peanut crusted tilapia with a peanut hummus and he did just that and lost his elimination match on The Next Iron Chef. I have regrets, more than I can count, but I don’t miss those days. I don’t miss wasted money or my years in college. I don’t miss watching Food Network with friends or that savory, salty popcorn I totally should have ponied up an extra $1.50 for. I don’t miss those things, because they are still here, inside of me, as moments I can revisit any time I choose. I can regret the choices I’ve made and wish things had played out significantly different (I’m so sorry Chef Robert Irvine, you will always be my Iron Chef), but I don’t miss them. They were moments, and they happened, and that’s life.

But you? I made the monstrously huge mistake of choosing to make you my life. So you can’t become another part of my life, something to reflect on, good or bad. I knew my mistake, every step taken towards that mistake, but I still made them.

I’ve felt the weight of broken men against my chest. I’ve watched as they cried until they had nothing left, collapsing into my arms and letting me guide them into a rocky slumber. I’ve steadied the shaking hands of terrified children. They were small, but the fear in their eyes was big, and it threatened to swallow us both whole. I let my heart break in silence, doing my best to give those kids every ounce of my warmth, never letting my smile waver, because that was all I could do for them. I’ve touched the bruised faces of women who did nothing wrong. I’m only trying to help them, to clean their wounds, but it’s hard, because no matter how slowly I raise my arms, I can see their spines clinch, their eyes narrow, and even the weight of the air around us becomes a mass of chains, so I can never have a delicate enough touch to give these women even a moment of peace. And I’ve watched my own life collapse from the pressure of wanting to only save others. I knew where I was heading, but I was determined to save them, at least one of them. If I could save even one of them, I could have saved myself… I know I could have done it, I just needed that proof… but maybe that’s why I couldn’t do a damn thing for any of them, because I was never sincere. I wanted to save them, but only for my own selfish reasons. So of course I couldn’t help them. So of course I’m still breaking. It all makes perfect sense. In the end, it was all for nothing. Everything I did was for absolutely fucking nothing. I should have known better… I shouldn’t have fucking bothered… I should have trusted in my own judgement and saved myself this pain… I should just fucking die.

Sleeping in is a luxury far removed from my reality. My bed still calls to me every morning, giving the utmost effort to hold me down. But this isn’t an act of kinship with my sheets, rather my sheets are hellbent on smothering me into nothingness. I’m laying facedown, surrounded in a sea of tumbling cotton, and every attempt from my lungs to dispel the CO2 coating my throat is pushed straight back down. In a matter of seconds, the warm air I’ve been swallowing has become a solid mass of fiery coals, cooking my flesh from the inside out. The only chance for relief would be to welcome the idea of sleep, but I know that with sleep comes dreams, and my dreams have been sifted time and time again until I was left with but a single scene. That scene also haunts me while I’m awake, but when I’m awake I can numb my feels through things like work, drugs or alcohol. In my dreams I can’t leave my own head, so it hits me full force. And it hurts. God, it hurts so fucking much. I know it’s just a dream, but it still breaks me. Every night it breaks me, and I’m forced to put myself back together in the morning. I have responsibilities, so I can’t waste any time. I know I’m not putting things back exactly where they should go. I know I’m ignoring my crumbling edges. I know nothing will get better for me if I don’t stop living like this. But this is all I know. This is the only way I know how to stand back up.